Busy Ripa isn't complaining

HOLLYWOOD — Kelly Ripa, who used to split her time between co-hosting "Live with Regis & Kelly" and "All My Children," has left the soap opera behind. But she is about to be doing double duty once again by remaining with the talk show and co-starring in the new ABC sitcom "Hope & Faith."

She's certainly not complaining about the workload. "I think that's because I'm sort of a disorganized person by nature, I make my workload appear to be much more than it actually is," Ripa said. "I work at 'Live' in the morning, and it's literally one hour of work a day. The producers and the staff are so competent that I don't really have more than one hour of work a day there. After that, I'm done." (Which is sort of interesting, given all the whining her "Live" predecessor, Kathie Lee Gifford, did about being overworked.)

With one great job that pays her lots of money, why would Ripa go looking for another gig? "Honestly, as an actress, I find it extremely difficult to turn down a job. Especially one I just thought I could have so much fun with," said Ripa, who despite her talk-show fame still considers herself to be primarily an actress.

"That's what I did for 13 years before the talk show. It's so ironic that only when I got the talk show did most people then see me as an actress and start offering me roles."

And she said she doesn't feel like she's "very good" at being a talk-show host. "I feel like I can do my talk-show duties when Regis is there. When he's gone, I feel completely useless," Ripa said. "When he takes a day off, I'm, like 'Oh, no, these poor souls that have me interviewing them.' I think that is a craft that will develop with me over time."

Not, once again, that it's such hard work. "Basically, after you work on a daytime drama, everything seems like part-time work after that, because that's the hardest job there is," Ripa said.

In "Hope & Faith," Ripa plays a fired soap-opera diva who, having spent all her money, is forced to move in with her sister (Faith Ford of "Murphy Brown"), a suburban wife and mother. "This is totally logical. She spent all of her money on shoes and handbags, because if you work on a soap opera, it's sort of like this golden goose. . . . Every week you think, 'This is terrific. I'm getting a paycheck every week.' As an actor, that's unheard of.

"And then your evil twin comes and kills you and shoots herself and you've spent all of your money on clothes and shoes."